Its For the Birds

I like to think of myself as a bird lover.

Not the kind that travels the country for bird –watching expeditions or one of those who keeps a life list of birds spotted and then brags about it to his friends. No, I’m more of a living room bird lover, the kind who likes to look out the living room window and then remark, “Hey, there’s a chickadee.” Not that chickadees are the only birds I can identify, but they are one of the four or five that I know about who live in my neighborhood. Because of my love of birds, over the years I’ve tried to help the little creatures that flit about my yard. My first attempt beginning several years ago was to help provide housing for the little winged dustballs.

 Over the years, I have invested a small bundle in birdhouses that I have built or bought and then mounted around the yard, defacing several trees in the process. So far, I have had exactly zero birds take up residence in my birdhouses. What I generally find is that the winged midgets live in houses of their own construction instead of my spacious and attractive proffered lodgings. My two-story, 12-room purple martin house is a case in point. I erected the apartment dwelling in 2010, but only one family of mud swallows inspected the place, sniffed, (imperiously, it seemed to me) and then left. Since then, a few other birds have stopped by, but none has stayed more than a week. I think that the business of selling birdhouses is a vast rightwing conspiracy foisted on us bird lovers by handcrafters at flea markets and craft shows. Since lodging birds hasn’t worked out very well, I have adopted other means of supporting them.

 I’m a bird feeder. I like feeding birds, probably because they remind me of my own habits. I get a kick out of watching the greedy little devils buzz around my feeders and devour my seeds like there is no tomorrow. Feeding the birds after the feeders have been empty for a day or so is a special treat. The fuzzy little chatterboxes just can’t wait for me to fill their larder. I can put out seeds anytime during the day and have half-dozen birds dive-bombing me before I put away the ladder. Those that wait ‘till I am finished generally sit on a nearby branch and scold me for being late with the food. After the feeders are full, it’s a hoot watching them chase each other away and then squawk or chirp proudly as they strut around the four feeders before they to gorge on my largess. But, bird feeding has also caused a number of problems. Beyond the mere cost of feeders, seeds, oranges, sugar and suet, I have had problems in keeping birds happy. In fact, it has been a long struggle between me, the birds, and several other critters that take pleasure in foiling my attempts to be a responsible birder.

 The critters that have caused the biggest problems are our local bears. Those beggars are determined to eat my seeds and, in the process, wreck my feeders. They generally wreak havoc early in the spring. Their springtime marauding happens when the lazy old bears wake up from a long winter’s nap only to learn that the rest of the world (that supplies their food) is not yet fully awake. Then, they turn to my feeders. I have also had bear problems later in the year when the mama drives away her youngster so she can receive the affections of the nearest male. The youngsters are often not skilled at finding food but they seem to find my feeders like a dog after a bitch in heat.

 I wouldn’t mind if the wooly bruins just ate the seeds, but no, they have to bend the steel pole holding the feeders, tear the tube feeders from their hooks then break everything else to get at the seeds. More than once, the black devils have carried away the feeders entirely, never to be found again. My poor, starving birds have to wait for me to find time in my busy retirement schedule to trek to the hardware store for replacement parts and then re-build the feeding platform and re-hang a new set of feeders. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

 Bears aren’t the only culprits. We seem to have our share of hungry raccoons also. Early one morning, I found four of the mangy furballs, all sitting in my platform feeder happily munching away. It is incredible how much they can eat in one night. I learned just how much the hard way when I left a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds in the back of the pick-up truck that was parked outside. Some wily raccoon sniffed out my mistake, spread the word to all his friends in the neighborhood, and consumed a large share of the bag in one night.

 Smaller crittters also attack my bird food. I have a plentiful supply of red squirrels, fox squirrels and chipmucks who regularly attend the feeders. Of course, I discourage their direct attacks with the use of an inverted can mounted on the pole that supports the feeders. That helps a little. The birds don’t help though, as they shovel off seeds to the ground where the assorted buggers with tails gather for the bounty and laugh at the dog’s feeble attempts to chase them into submission.

 I put out a variety of food for birds; sunflower seeds, nyger, suet, safflower and of course, oranges and sugar water for orioles and hummers. The suet is a mistake since it attracts woodpeckers. The woodpeckers go from my suet to the logs on my house or the boards on my barn to peck away for their desert. My barn has several long rows of holes made by peckers who were searching for bugs on my board and batten. So far, the logs on my house are still intact as I keep alert for the telltale rat tat tat that identifies a pecker who wants attention or a bug meal. My favorite pecker is the Pileated, the bird who seems to be almost as big as I am. I am sort of glad that he is shy and doesn’t like seeds or feeding stations.

I’d like to tell you more about me and my local bird population, but I can see from my perch at the computer that the feeders are empty again so it’s time to ignite the feeding orgy. “By the way, there’s another of those screwy upside-down birds that looks like a chickadee hanging around.”

 

Grandpa Bill